Research

The Latin American and Latino Studies Program encourages and supports student and faculty research on Latin American and Latino politics, history, geography, economics and culture. Faculty members across a variety of departments at Wake Forest are constantly engaged in research on a wide range of Latin American topics and issues including music, human rights, ecology, immigration, music, cinema, development, literature and more. Faculty often opt to enlist the aid of undergraduate students in conducting their research and students are encouraged to seek out the many research opportunities available on campus. Additionally, students who minor in Latin American and Latino Studies are strongly encouraged to write their major thesis, when required, on issues related to Latin American and Latino Studies, when possible.

Please contact Silvia Correa, Program Assistant, with updates as to recent publications or ongoing research for inclusion on this section of the website.

Dr. Luis Roniger, Reynolds Professor of Latin American Studies, recently published a new book through the University of Florida Press, Transnational Politics in Central America. He has also recently published three journal articles: “Connected Histories, Power and Meaning: Transnational Forces in the Construction of Collective Identities,” available in the August 2011 edition of the Journal of Classical Sociology; “Destierro y exilio político en América Latina: Un campo de estudio transnacional e histórico en expansión,” available in the October-December 2011 edition of the electronic journal, Pacarina del Sur; and “Transitional Justice and Protracted Accountability in Re-Democratized Uruguay (1985-2011), available in the November 2011 edition of the Journal of Latin American Studies.

Dr. Peter M. Siavelis, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, recently published two a journal article with Bentley University Associate Professor Bonnie Field. The article, entitled “Endogenizing Legislative Candidate Selection Procedures in Nascent Democracies: Evidence from Spain and Chile” appeared in Democratization. He has also written a chapter on candidate selection in Latin America with Dr. Field titled “La selección de candidatos para el poder legislativo en América Latina: de dónde venimos y nuevos caminos de investigación” for the book Algo más que presidentes. El papel del poder legislativo en América Latina and the Prologue for the book En el nombre de la razón: Tecnócratas y política en Chile.

Dr. Kathryn M. Mayers, Associate Professor of Spanish, recently published a book titled Visions of Empire in Colonial Spanish American Ekphrastic Writing, available now through Bucknell University Press. The book examines the way words about pictures in the writing of three Spanish American Creoles–Hernando Dominguez Camargo, Juan de Espinosa Medrano, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz–negotiate the challenges that confronted the American-born ruling elite in Spanish America during the contentious transitional period between the Conquest and Independence.

Dr. Luis Roniger, Reynolds Professor of Latin American Studies, is currently in the process of publishing several articles and book chapters, including: “Les droits de l’homme au centre des débats politiques pendant les transitions et consolidations démocratiques dans les pays du Cône Sud,” to be published in a edited volume by Sophie Daviaud titled Droits de l’homme dans les Amériques (Paris: L’Harmattan); “Iberoamerica and Iberoamerican Jews in the Perspective of Regional and Transnational Studies,” to be published in Volume VII of Judaica Latinoamericana; and “Human Rights and Human Rights Violations in the Southern Cone”, with Mario Sznajder, to be published in The International Encyclopedia of Human Rights (Routledge), edited by Thomas Cushman. He is also co-editing with James N Green and Pablo Yakelevich the book Exile and the Politics of Exclusion in the Americas, forthcoming with Sussex Academic Press in 2012.